BAMAKO TO CONAKERY

The journey started at about 4 30 am I had parked all my stuff and was ready so by 8 pm on Sunday I was at the net café in Bamako where my new found friend who is from Guinea works, he had tried to arrange his going back home to visit his Dad and family with my going, I thought I was not that necessary but was wrong to think that till we got to Conakry.
The journey was very long and tiring, when we set off from Bamako after a very long wait, I was horrified to learn that the front seat for one means two people, three seats at the back meant four people and two at the rear meant three, so eventually a seven seater estate car had ten people on board as well as a lot of luggage on the roof rack.
My first taste of what was to come hit me when after about ten miles outside Bamako we encountered our first border crossing. Here I had to pay three thousand Franc what for? The soldier said nothing then he goes stamp money. This set the stage for subsequent stamp monies to be paid at every border check point is also two one for the military and one for the police so you can guess two stamp money even when there is no stamp, I called it looking of passport money. After driving for about two hours we came to the borders Guinea here I had to change some money and get my passport stamped and another stamp money and looking money, every time we had to leave the car and walk to an office and every time because I am English speaking and don’t have French documents the get fussy just to get more money from me even thou I tell them the laws of ECOWAS states that citizens of member states have free passage to any member country, it did not matter to them.
This continued for a long time it even got worse as we were nearing Conakry the road blocks became rampant and more men in uniforms were blatantly asking for money they were naming how much they wanted. It was terrible.